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MANILA, Philippines – Marinduque District Representative Lone Lord Allan Velasco should “face the reality” that House members want Alan Peter Cayetano to be their President despite his offer to resign, the House Vice Speaker and the Camarines Sur second district representative Luis Raymund “LRay” Villafuerte said Sunday.
In a statement, Villafuerte said that Wednesday’s roll call to reject Cayetano’s offer to resign from his post “has already sent a loud and clear message that this issue is over, as most of our peers want a status quo in the House activist leadership that has nurtured a principled association with the Duterte administration. “
A total of 184 legislators voted to reject the resignation of Cayetano to make way for Velasco to take the presidency.
The legislator also criticized Velasco for his “sudden and incessant spiel” about the term agreement shared between him and Cayetano.
According to the shared term agreement negotiated by President Rodrigo Duterte, Cayetano would sit as president of the Chamber for the first 15 months of the XVIII Congress, while Velasco would succeed him in the remaining 21 months.
At a meeting between Duterte, Velasco and Cayetano in Malacañang, it was decided that Velasco will take the speaker on October 14.
Villafuerte, for his part, said that it was time for Velasco and his allies “to face reality, move on” and work with the leadership of the Chamber under [Cayetano] given that this problem has already been resolved, even more so after President Duterte himself chose to respect the House vote on September 29 in favor of Cayetano and told presidential spokesman Harry Roque that he was adopting a handover policy in what which he termed as an internal matter of the chamber. “
The legislator was referring to Roque’s pronouncement that the president decided to “stay out” of the line of speakers in the House of Representatives.
The vice president of the House of Representatives also rejected Velasco’s claim that the dispute between the speakers has put the approval of the proposed national budget for 2021 at risk.
In a video message on Friday, the Marinduque representative said Cayetano was “blackmailing” Duterte with the budget.
“The leadership of the House under renewed President Alan Cayetano knows very well that the timely approval of GAA 2021 [General Appropriations Act] is crucial to the Duterte administration’s comprehensive efforts to defeat the coronavirus pandemic and drive the battered economy toward a strong and rapid recovery, and therefore remains fully committed to concluding plenary deliberations on next year’s budget plan this month. ” Villafuerte said.
“If Deputy Velasco has problems regarding the Presidency, the budget or any other matter that affects the institution, he must be the true gentleman to raise the issue on the floor where his colleagues can listen to him and where he can be questioned without a script for him to follow, ”he added.
Apart from this, Villafuerte criticized Velasco even more, saying that he was the one who “disgraced” Duterte during their meeting in Malacañang when the Chief Executive asked to transfer the term of distribution to December.
Villafuerte added that Velasco and his allies also refused to participate in the roll call vote. This, Villafuerte said, is “a reflection of Velasco’s leadership style, or a complete lack of it, and a harbinger of the politics of drift and irrelevance that will most likely plague the House if he ends up being president.”
“If Velasco were leadership material, instead of avoiding last week’s vote as a pipsqueak, he would have taken the bull by the horns by participating in plenary as a true leader would and explaining to our peers why a reorganization and where he intends to lead the chamber for the remainder of Duterte’s presidency, ”he added.
“Instead, there was a great evasion on his part. And so did his alleged allies who, following the directive of their presumed leader, similarly sidestepped the issue by refusing to participate in the plenary session, instead voting to support the resignation of President Cayetano in support of his expected change of position. leadership in favor of Velasco. . “
And with Cayetano’s offer to resign on October 1, Villafuerte said that the incumbent president “has already done his part of the shared term agreement.”
JE
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